Trailer Reaction: ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’

After a two year hiatus, the rebooted Spider-Man is returning to take on a whole bunch of new threats for his second outing. Let’s join him by putting on our mechanical web shooters and blue & red underpants as we take a look at the trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

After the events of The Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) is trying to get acclimated to his roles in life, both as the arachnid themed defender of New York City and as the boyfriend of his high school crush Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone). But Peter’s personal life has to take a back seat as a host of new villains have come out of the woodwork to endanger the lives of many a New Yorker, including Electro (Jamie Foxx), an electrical engineer at OsCorp turned electricity powered villain and The Rhino (Paul Giamatti), a Russian mobster with an apparent pension for giant robotic suits. However, as all of this goes on, Peter reconnects with his old friend Harry Osbourne (Dane DeHaan), who has returned to New York to take care of his ill father and OsCorp president Norman Osbourne (Chris Cooper), both of whom may have sinister intentions of their own. View the trailer below:

As one may be able to tell both from the description above and this trailer, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has A LOT of things going on. Parker’s personal life, two confirmed villains, introducing the Osbourne, a few hints at the likely presence of The Green Goblin, struggles to keep his relationship with Gwen afloat, etc. All of it seems a bit overwhelming, especially when introducing so many new villains and characters might end up putting the older characters’ development to the wayside. Unfortunately, the trailer seems to promote the idea that this Spider-Man flick will focus much more on the action than organic character development. And this is coming from someone who enjoyed the first Amazing Spider-Man, a film which many have argued wrecked the character of Peter Parker from the start of this reboot.

Now, I’m not saying there’s absolutely no forward momentum hinted within the trailer. I like the idea of exploring Peter’s father’s work for OsCorp, which is an improvement over the very small amount of information we previously had in the first film. The idea of Peter exploring his past sounds intriguing, but I still can’t help but shake the idea that it’ll be mostly put to the side in order to introduce all these other elements. There’s clearly a lot of Electro, whom puts his lighting powers and Emperor Palpatine-brand hoodie on full display as he reeks havoc on the city. There’s also a few brief shots of The Rhino on display, which mostly seems to be there to show off how much scenery Paul Giamatti can chew while trying to kill Spider-Man. So I wouldn’t be surprised if characters like Gwen and Aunt May were lost in the shuffle of explosions and character origins.

Then there’s the Osbournes. This is the first time this rebooted series has had deal with retooling a previously filmed villain and it seems as if they’re definitely changing things up… though whether or not it’s for the better is obviously up for debate. Given the shots in the trailer, it’s quite clear that Chris Cooper’s version of Norman won’t be the very animated slimy portrayal that Willem Dafoe displayed over a decade ago, to the point where he’s become a man on what looks to be his near deathbed. Now, while this is clearly trying to pick up on the whispers about Norman’s sickness that was mentioned in the previous film, it’s still disappointing to see the character be limited to bed rest.

Then there’s Harry, who’s apparently pre-existing friendship with Peter will probably be explored… at least until he becomes The Green Goblin, which is heavily implied through shots of him in the OsCorp suit riding a glider (and was revealed certain promotional material). Regardless of changing Harry into the first Goblin, the bigger issue at hand seems to be that they’ll likely rush Harry’s development in order to make him the Goblin, which might even tie into the theory that The Green Goblin will kill Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy in order to echo the death of Stacy from the landmark Spider-Man arc The Night Gwen Stacy Died. Given that we see a lot of Stacy in peril during the trailer, this wouldn’t surprise me. I just hope it doesn’t disappoint myself or any of the far more die hard Spider-Man comic fans out there by rushing such a monumental moment from the source material or even the death of a character in context of the film series.

But that’s just one man’s opinion. How do you feel about the trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2? Does it look like the superhero extravaganza that will kick off the summer of 2014 right or will it plummet to the ground like Peter with malfunctioning web shooters? Post your thoughts below!

Thomas Mariani is a born geek, with a bit of nerd mixed in here & there. A native of the (less) swampy parts of Florida, Thomas has always been a fan of films, television & other sources of media ever since he was a child, having been raised on Jim Henson, Star Wars and the basic cable cartoons of the ’90s & ’00s. He already has experience writing and podcasting about pop culture, which you can read/listen to on sites like Widescreen Warrior, TvTalk, Horrornews.net and Doc Rotten or on Twitter as @NotTheWhosTommy